Busy... Busy...

I mailed the little sweater set that I had made to my cousin for her new Granddaughter. I also sent along two burp pads that I had made. They should get to them by Saturday but with the way the mail is it could be Monday or Tuesday before they get them.


I completed and mailed out the remaining "Turning Four-T" blocks. One was a black print and the last one a "scrappy" ; I hope that the ladies will like them.





We've been getting quite a bit of rain this week - THANKFULLY!And these little zinnias in my garden have really enjoyed it all; they are so lovely to see out my kitchen window. Next Spring I will plant a LOT more flowers throughout the garden amongst the vegetables. I just love the colors they bring to the garden and I do believe they would also bring the bee's that I need for pollination of my vegetables.


I found a pattern on the Lion Brand website for a sweater done in circles and decided to make it for myself. I had several 1 pound bags of a cotton yarn in my "stash" that I had bought at A.C. Moore a couple years ago. Here is the start of one of the sleeves. It will definitely be a one of a kind sweater. I love this color as it will go with any neutral really well.

I haven't been feeling too well today so have been taking it pretty easy. I tried to get groceries early in the day but got to feeling really sick in the store so I came home and took a nap. I need to go back and get some more necessities tonight - got to have milk for cereal in the morning.

My Helper

Mr. Tesla is my always there helper. Today he decided I should be in the sewing room and thats where he went right after breakfast. He was laying right behind my machine but I told him, "Not today". I've not been feeling well today and I think it had a lot to do with the late night we had last night and the added worry it entailed.

Last night it was raining and REALLY dark because of the cloud cover. Greg had gone out to Fort Jackson to workout and was heading home when he witnessed a man hydro-plain and crash his car into 2 barricade walls. Greg and another man stopped to help him out of his car and away from the accident. He called us to let us know that he was alright at that point and while on the phone with me another car ran into the all ready wrecked vehicle(that had it's emergency flashers on). Scared the daylights out of me to say the least. They were safe but then a man jumped out of that car and was screaming at Greg and the other Good Samaritan that had stopped to help asking them , "Why they weren't out in the middle of the highway flagging people around the accident!" IDIOT! Because it's dark and raining and visibility is really bad and we'd be run over is what Greg was thinking; but he just said, "Sir, I need you to get your wife and 2 children out of that car and behind this barricade for your own safety." That was answered with a "F-U". I was so glad when the police got there and Greg was able to come home safe and sound. Greg has a good heart and loves to help people but sometimes it worries me. But I wouldn't change him for the world.

OH HAPPY DANCE!!!!

IT'S BEEN RAINING!!!! And we are expecting some more today. The birds are just singing and singing this morning; I do believe that they are as happy as I am about the rain.

Once I get the housework done I plan to sew as long as there isn't a bunch of thunder and lightening. My new machine has too much electronic on it so I unplug it just like I unplug computers during bad storms. If that happens though I will pick up a crochet project - I'm currently working on a sweater for myself. The pattern is called "Circular Motion" and it's off from the Lion Brand website. It's really quite interesting as it's crocheted in circles instead of straight rows - hence the name. I'll post some pictures when It starts looking like a sweater.

The other day when I cleaned out the gutters I must have rubbed up against some poison oak as my right leg has a patchy itchy spot very reminiscent of my reaction to doing just that. UGH! Oh well at least the garage didn't flood last night.

Better get this day started - Good Morning everyone.

Good Early Morning -Again

I'm not sure why I can't sleep in anymore but thats OK - it gives me a quiet time before everyone else is awake and moving about. I expected to awake to rain but none has appeared. This is our forecast...
"TODAY CLOUDY. A CHANCE OF SHOWERS WITH A SLIGHT CHANCE OF
THUNDERSTORMS THIS MORNING
THEN SHOWERS WITH A CHANCE OF
THUNDERSTORMS THIS AFTERNOON. HIGHS IN THE MID 80S. SOUTHEAST
WINDS AROUND 5 MPH. CHANCE OF RAIN 80 PERCENT.

TONIGHT
SHOWERS WITH A CHANCE OF THUNDERSTORMS. LOCALLY HEAVY
RAINFALL POSSIBLE. LOWS IN THE UPPER 60S. SOUTHEAST WINDS AROUND
5 MPH. CHANCE OF RAIN NEAR 100 PERCENT. "

I will believe it when I see it.

Last night I wasn't really feeling much like walking but I went along with Scott so that he could work off some stress - he ran I walked. Then we got separated and I decided to sit by the River and wait for him to come back by... he had gone back to the car not further up the trail. He found me by borrowing someone's phone to call me - I almost didn't answer because I didn't recognize the number. While I was sitting there I got to see several cranes fly over and a bunch of fish jumping in the water; trying to catch bugs. It was so peaceful.

Forgot ...

Another of my on-line quilting friends received her Round Robin home once again. Her quilt was a Patriotic themed and I think it turned out absolutely BEAUTIFUL!!!! Makes me want to do a Patriotic Center myself - perhaps after the Holiday themed RR we will do another one.

Just 3 left to get their RR's home and I have 2 yet to work on. I hope that they will come through SOON as we will be over lapping with the new RR swap and that could lead to confusion.

More Butterfly pictures and a project

Yesterday I made a Christmas gift - can't say what it is or whom it's for but I will show this much. It's 100% Wool and I want one for myself as well. I will have to include specific care instructions so that it doesn't shrink to Barbie size and hope the receiver reads them. I had enough yarn left to make myself a delightful little wool coaster for my coffee mug to set on at my desk. Perhaps my coffee will stay hot longer while sitting on this; my desk is metal and it seems to zap the heat right out of my mugs.














Yesterday I was able to catch a few photos of one of the black butterflies that visit my lantana by the lamp post. This one looks like it's had quite a few close calls with birds; it's wings were looking pretty raggedy. I absolutely love the delayed shutter control on our little camera. These didn't turn out as well as the previous ones as this butterfly did NOT like the added attention it was getting. I need to set a chair up out there that I could just sit and wait for them so that they would get used to my presence... perhaps I could even catch a picture of some of the tiny hummingbirds that visit.

What have I been up to???? You wonder....

Well I've been sewing some quilt blocks for a swap. The block is called "Turning Four - T" or the "Temperance" block... the instructions I found on the Web have been giving me a bit of trouble. Each one has turned out a different size - not sure whats going on but I'm pushing forward. Mine is the green T's and the blue T's will go to an on-line quilting friend in Illinois.














I've also been working on my next Round Robin (RR) Center that will start going around the Earth soon to the other quilter's in the group to add a row. I chose Halloween as my "Holiday RR" center. I found the perfect coloring page that I turned around and made into a transfer that I could embroider. Then I added a border to make it about 12" square (the starting size for this RR).



I've also crocheted a sweater and beanie hat set to go into my Etsy box. As soon as I get it full of goodies I will open my shop and announce the opening on here with a link. Bear with me... I feel like I'm standing on the edge of a cliff and afraid to jump on this one. (Just being honest).

Today I cleaned out the gutter that runs along the front of our garage as we are hoping for rain this weekend and I didn't want the garage to flood. I also swept a good portion of the driveway so that we won't walk in a bunch of leaf debris; at least for a little while. I put all the leaves into my 3-bin composter in the back yard and turned the stuff that was in the other two bins into the same bin as the leaves and layered it all so hopefully it will break down quickly. Our garden REALLY needs a bunch of nice organic material added so that next Springs garden will be FANTASTIC. Doing all that I earned myself a really nice deep blister on my left thumb... OUCH!

OH before all that I cleaned out the two bird feeders and filled them with sunflower seeds as we have had quite a few birds checking the feeders out lately. We are thinking with the drought conditions they may be having trouble finding things to eat as well as the water issue. I refilled the birdbath this morning also. I truly hope that we do get some rain this weekend.

I better get the rest of my dinner made - the fella's will be home soon and HUNGRY!

A bit of Nature's Beauty

I had a delightful visitor today on the Lantana out front. There was also a large Black Butterfly with yellow spots along it's wings but it wouldn't stay feeding long enough for me to catch any pictures. But this one was so beautiful I just had to take as many photos as I could while it was there. Perhaps tomorrow afternoon I will be able to catch some photos of the black butterfly.

Another Week has Begun...

It's Monday morning once again - the weekends pass entirely too quickly. Greg just left for his job at the DMH - Department of Mental Health; he works as a supply clerk there. Scott is waiting for his first phone interview to start at 8 AM here at home; then he will go to work and take another one while there. We have all our fingers and toes crossed that one of these will be a "winner" and he will once again have a job with benefits.

Today is my house cleaning day so I will start working on that as soon as I finish this post. Once the house is clean I can start sewing on some quilt blocks I need to get completed for some swaps that I am in with my on-line quilting group. A full day for me here at home as well.

I turned the A/C off this morning and have a few windows open so we can enjoy the songs of the birds as they get their day started as well. One has just spotted Nicolas on the front porch - sounds like a ray gun of sorts - must be a Mocking bird.

HAPPY MONDAY~

A New Perspective

This morning we decided to cross over the Blossom Street Bridge into Columbia and enter the Three River Green-way next to the USC Baseball Stadium to see how far we could walk out into the river without getting our feet too wet - we will definitely look into getting some water shoes so we can just walk on in and not worry about stepping on fish hooks, broken glass or other foot damaging oddities. The BEST thing we saw I could not capture with the camera and that was quite a large Barred Owl. It looked right at us several times. He looked so wise spinning his head around to see us. Absolutely magnificent! It was just so exciting to watch it go from tree to tree above us. It's definitely a different perspective on that side of the river in so many ways. In the one photo where you can see an old doll stroller to the right there is a mangled car; Scott believes it to be a 1950's model.

"TOO-KERS" = FEET

At least to Scott's Aunt Mary Etta - she would call her cats feet; Too-kers. Here are "our" too-kers as we settled in for the night yesterday...

A Wonderful Walk and a LONG Nap

This morning I was up about 6 AM - could have slept in as we didn't have to be up at that hour but my body had other ideas. Scott got up about 8ish - we ate breakfast and then headed over to walk by the River and just relax. We walked from the end of the walk in Riverland Park to the boardwalk just before the Cayce/West Columbia border fence/gate. The river is so low right now we can walk quite a ways out into it and get some GREAT picture's of the Gervais Strret bridge in the distance. We found a piece of one of the really old lanterns that used to light one of the bridges, several bi-valves among the river smoothed rocks and some "sea weed". There were also bits of railroad parts and old bricks from the old brickyard. Carolina Adventures had a group of Kayaker's going down the river and we got to watch several flocks of geese flying over. The flowers and bugs were also putting on a good show today. I especially like the picture of the butterfly. All in all it was a GREAT walk. When we came home we ate a lunch of leftover's from the frig and then we both succumbed to the "nap lures" and laid down for a "short" nap - got back up at nearly 4 PM. I guess we were just exhausted.